Lyrical Dissonance

Have you ever heard a song that sounds very upbeat, with a catchy melody, but when you pay attention to the words, it turns out to be a very sad or depressing song? That came to mind yesterday when, in a furtive attempt to cheer people up during the cold, depressing winter weather we're experiencing, the song leader at my Rotary club selected "You Are My Sunshine" as the song of the day.

If you aren't familiar with the lyrics, here is the main chorus:

You are my sunshine
My only sunshine
You make me happy
When skies are gray;
You'll never know, dear,
How much I love you.
Please don't take my sunshine away.

Most people are already familiar with that refrain. How many are familiar with the next verse, which goes like this:

The other nite, dear,
As I lay sleeping
I dreamed I held you in my arms.
When I awoke, dear,
I was mistaken
And I hung my head and cried.

And then there are other verses, which normally don't get included in the song. These were available online, and I assume some versions of the song include them:

I'll always love you
And make you happy
If you will only say the same
But if you leave me
To love another
You'll regret it all some day;

Chorus

You told me once, dear
You really loved me
And no one else could come between
But now you've left me
And love another
You have shattered all my dreams;

Chorus

Real cheery stuff, isn't it? At the time, I knew there was a musical term that described such a juxtaposition of upbeat music and downbeat lyrics, but I couldn't think of it. Today, I googled for the following search terms: "music term lyrics song don't match upbeat sad." In return, this website came back as the sixth hit for that search. So, not only do I now know that the correct terminology is lyrical dissonance, but I also have many, many examples of such lyrical dissonance provided by listeners around the Web.

I'll have to include the lyrics or a reference to "You Are My Sunshine," since that song has not made the list yet. There are some excellent examples of lyrical dissonance provided at that website, including many songs I wouldn't normally think of, but which make perfect sense after someone else suggests them.

However, in addition to the omission of "Sunshine," people left out perhaps the master of all songwriters when it comes to lyrical dissonance. I'm talking about none other than Declan Patrick McManus, AKA Elvis Costello. Almost every song he's written and/or sung, be it with his band The Attractions or in his solo career, has had some measure of lyrical dissonance. From early work such as "Alison" and "Radio, Radio" to later hits such as "Veronica" and "Every Day I Write the Book," Costello's songs often strike upbeat, cheery melodies... ...but the lyrics couldn't be darker.

Costello also covered "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" in excellent fashion, with an upbeat tempo. He also did a cover of Burt Bacharach's "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" for the Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me soundtrack, another example of what sounds like a beautiful little love song, but whose lyrics make it certain he'll never open up his heart to another.

I've been very impressed with this phenomenon every time I listen to an Elvis Costello song, but I wasn't motivated to learn the musical term behind it until yesterday's singing of "You Are My Sunshine." Funny how that works.

Random Thoughts for a Monday Morning

Thus far, I've resisted the temptation to run through a semi-organized list of random thoughts that flicker through my consciousness, attempting to keep each post centered on an easily discernable topic. Once I've progressed down this list, you'll see why.

• Over the weekend, I watched the original The Italian Job (1969) with Michael Caine in the lead role. I have seen the Marky Mark remake from 2003, but from what I remember, the similarities between the two movies begin and end with the bad/good guys using Minis to escape after a heist in Italy.
  
• The ending from the original Italian Job is one of the greatest WTF? moments in movie history, apparently. It's a good thing I didn't see the movie until very recently, because Caine only revealed in late 2008 the meaning behind the sudden end credits.
  
• The movie does have a good soundtrack, courtesy of Quincy Jones. And the "Self-Preservation Society" tune towards the end is very catchy, if a complete non-sequitur in the movie.
• The original has to be considered a comedy, and that the writers and actors played every scene for laughs, or else it doesn't make any sense. And, boy, have our opinions of what is or isn't funny changed since the late Sixties!
• The original Italian Job received a G - General Audiences rating from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), and I know that the ratings system has changed over the years, but wow! When women were prancing about in their underwear, I couldn't believe it! G -- it's not just for Disney any more!
• My wife and I have been watching a TON of period costume dramas lately, including such fare as The Other Boleyn Girl (2008), Becoming Jane (2007), Lady Jane (the 1986 movie with Helena Bonham Carter and Cary Elwes), A Room With a View (1985), and the latest, Tess of the D'Urbervilles (2008), a Masterpiece Contemporary production from England. As kids, we used to groan and leave the room whenever our parents would turn on Masterpiece Theater on PBS. My tastes must be changing.
• Oh, and whether the mores of the time were captured in historical fiction like The Other Boleyn Girl, or just reflected by the fiction of the time like Tess, aren't we all better off now that women are no longer treated as Chattel? It's a bit scary to think that we are not that far removed from the time when a woman had no say in her marriage, when daughters were treated as pawns to be used to advance a family's social standing, and when a woman who was raped was blamed for losing her womanly "virtue."
• Going along with the movies mentioned above, we also saw The Magdalene Sisters (2002), in which young women in 1960s Ireland were subjected to dehumanizing cruelty if the Catholic nuns considered them to be "fallen women." Not that far removed at all, are we?
• And despite the fact that women received the unfettered right to vote (the 19th Amendment, in 1920) long before African-Americans did (the 24th Amendment, in 1962, which combined with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 eliminated the last blockages imposed after the passage of the 15th Amendment in 1870), isn't it interesting that the 1960s and '70s shared the upheaval of both the Civil Rights movement and the sexual revolution?
• In many parts of the world, girls are still prevented from receiving an education. They are instead sold into sexual slavery in places like Thailand, and their wages get sent back to provide a living for their family. Several not-for-profits exist to prevent or stop this human trafficking; the one I like, because it was founded by two USAFA grads, is the Somaly Mam Foundation.
• Think about it, and get involved.
  
• Boy, the statistic of home field advantage enjoyed during the Divisional playoff round (where home teams were winning 76% of the time) was turned upside-down this weekend, wasn't it?! Exactly upside-down: home teams were 1-3 this weekend.
• Who would have predicted Arizona (the number four seed, the lowest ranked Division winner, 9-7 on the season by virtue of going 6-0 within their Division, 0-5 playing in the Eastern time zone during the regular season) would be hosting the NFC Championship game next weekend? I thought Carolina was the closest thing to a cold, hard, lead pipe lock (with all due apologies to Mike & Mike in the Mornings) left in the NFL playoffs.
• Hey, that's why they play the games.
• So, we're left with a formerly 9-6-1 Philly team that advanced into the playoffs by virtue of that one tie with Cincinnati (and at the time, all the talking heads described it as a loss for the Eagles, since it was against the cover-your-eyes-awful Bungles) going up against a Cardinals team that previously hadn't won a playoff game since the Truman administration. No, no one saw that coming.
• It's also interesting to note that Joe Flacco became the first rookie QB in NFL history to win two playoff games. Ever.
  
• Now that the Giants have been knocked off, at home, by the Eagles, the Super Bowl favorite has to shift to the Steelers **shudder** who at least proved they still know how to win at home after a bye week.
• Think the NFL head office and the NBC ad execs are shaking at the prospects of a Pittsburgh or Baltimore vs. Arizona or Philly Super Bowl? Nah, this is the Super Bowl we're talking about, not the World Series or NBA finals. The ratings are contestant-proof.
• In cycling news, Lance Armstrong is getting ready to compete for the first time in the Tour Down Under (20-25 Jan 09). He says he is back in competitive cycling again just to help raise awareness for his cancer-fighting foundation, but it will be interesting to see what happens once his famously competitive juices start flowing again.
• Sorry, I probably shouldn't put Lance Armstrong and "competitive juices" so closely together in one paragraph. I would venture that no single athlete has been more suspected of using performance-enhancing drugs while simultaneously passing every single drug screening test administered to him in all his years of competition. The man has successfully passed over what? 175? 200? drug tests without a single positive or false positive. There's something to be said for that. You still cannot prove a negative.
  
• Now that Armstrong has been reunited with Johann Bruyneel, the team manager for all of Lance's Tour de France-winning teams, it will be interesting to see what they do together. For one thing, Bruyneel's current team, Astana, was blocked from racing in leTour in 2008 due to doping suspicions surrounding the team. Will they even be allowed to race in France this year?
• One more thing on Armstrong: he is an expectant father! Again! And the news story says this baby was conceived naturally. Hmmm... apparently we can still refer to Lance as "ol' one nut Armstrong."
• I've always wondered if perhaps Armstrong receives injections for the medical purposes of replacing lost testosterone, but never have seen any mention of anything at all along those lines. Does a man who has lost a testicle for whatever reason have hormonal imbalances in his body? WebMD appears to be mostly silent on this topic.
• My wife and I also had a "The Big Bang Theory" (CBS sitcom) marathon on Friday and Saturday. That shows just how exciting married life with children can be, I guess. We had to get the DVDs from Netflix, since the show normally is on during the time we are busy with the 3B routine with the kids. Oh, and CBS doesn't make full episodes of its shows available on its website, unlike ABC and NBC. I wonder why not?
  
• Being able to watch the majority of a full season of a sitcom in just two nights is pretty cool, though. It provides more continuity, and certainly more instant gratification, than waiting for a show to come on once a week. We loved it!
• Oh, and "The Big Bang Theory" is a fun show! I'm a geek, I admit.
  
• After one episode, when two Chinese kids were shown in their room with the lights flickering (the lights were being controlled remotely by the nerds in the show; you have to have seen it), I just HAD to go online and find out what comic or superhero logo one of the kids was wearing. It was a red shirt, with a red spike in the middle of a yellow circle with two squared-off "wings" on either side. How on earth can a person search for a nameless logo online? My first guess was a Flash Gordon logo from the mid-'80s movie of the same name. Bzzzzt! Incorrect answer. I googled for the words "big bang theory red yellow logo t-shirt" and came up with this as the second hit.
• Ain't the Internet great?!
  
• Like I said, I'm a geek. But "The Greatest American Hero" was way ahead of its time. I have to think its variation of post-modern ironic humor would go over much better these days.
• I did have a dream last night where I was on the Moon, and discovered a race of big, rock people, much like what was featured in Galaxy Quest (1999). Yeah, I'm a geek. I remember thinking, "Why hasn't anyone discovered this before?" and coming to the conclusion that there are vast swaths of territory on the Moon we haven't explored. There's a thought for you.

That's it! That's the list. That will do it for this Monday.

Best Blog List

I'll bet no one expected a follow-on post to my last one! It's like getting two, two, two posts in one! I would link to a Flying Circus video on the Spanish Inquisition for the first reference, and a gum ad* vid for the second, but I don't want this to go on forever.

* That was a gum ad, wasn't it? Now everybody uses that catch-phrase ("...it's two, two, two __ in one!") for other purposes.

So, after taking a hiatus from blogging (and unplugging from e-mail and the Internet in general) over the Thanksgiving break, I came back to discover that one of my oldest* friends gave me a Superior Scribbler Award. Awww, thanks! His blog is called "beyond assumptions," which I think is terrific. All too often, people stop with what they assume to be true, without examining events, situations, or press releases (or fill in your own blank) for deeper meanings. True, without mistaken assumptions, we wouldn't have Jack Tripper moments, but it was some guy who said, "The unexamined life is not worth living."

* Please note I did not say eldest.

Now, I do have a sneaking suspicion that this award was created (and very recently, too!) with the intention of giving props to little-known and obscure bloggers toiling away in anonymity. You know, people just like me. Why? Just to make me (us) feel better about the time we spend on these posts. Lord knows we're not getting paid for this.*

* There was a very funny multiple-strip segment recently drawn by Doonesbury's Gary Trudeau when his intrepid reporter of integrity, Rick Redfern, was downsized from his newspaper job. What was Rick's only alternative? Joining the ranks of the 35+ million strong blogosphere, where about 97% of the people do it for free, with no expectation of actually being paid for their words.

What is the Superior Scribbler Award, you ask? The rules are below, and they spring from the original post from "The Scholastic Scribe" on 18 Oct 08. Like I said, it's recent. Oh, and I'm #426 on the Mr. Linky List, if you're checking.

Here are the rules as I understand them:

* Each Superior Scribbler must in turn pass The Award on to 5 most-deserving Bloggy Friends.

* Each Superior Scribbler must link to the author & the name of the blog from whom he/she has received The Award.

* Each Superior Scribbler must display The Award on his/her blog, and link to this Post, which explains The Award.

* Each Blogger who wins The Superior Scribbler Award must visit this post and add his/her name to the Mr. Linky List. That way, we'll be able to keep up-to-date on everyone who receives This Prestigious Honor!

* Each Superior Scribbler must post these rules on his/her blog.

So, I'll play along and try to be nice. It can be hard to do sometimes. Once you let the cat of cynicism out of the bag, he can be hard to pop back in! Hmm... "cat of cynicism." I like that! Maybe I'll trademark it. It's already copyrighted by appearing here. Yowza! Gotta love those Internet IP rights rules.

Since I'm limited to just a top five list, I've been wracking my brain for blogs that would truly fit my top five. I'd love to include my Dad's blog, but it's so far out there, I never visit it. I figure it's enough to have his blog near the top of my links list on the right side of my blog. It's a similar story with my sister's blog; I link to it, but I'm not going to list it in my top five. My brother's site is also linked, but his website is less of a blog than it is a merchandising site with bloggy characteristics on the news feed.

I also thought of all the websites I've visited in the past that would more qualify as blogs, but which I no longer visit or have been taken down. I thought Drew Curtis' FARK website was hilarious for a time, until I realized that it was just a news aggregator with snarky comments. The PhotoShop contests are way cool, but you can get in trouble with NSFW links.

During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, I regularly followed the LT Smash website. He was an Army Intel Reservist (I think!) who was supporting the troops marching on Baghdad, and his insight into OIF was very enlightening, even for those of us who are prior military. After rotating back to the U.S., he changed the blog to be Citizen Smash, and now I think that's been taken down.

I would have loved to follow Bat Girl for two reasons: 1) she had undying love for the Twins, and any baseball fan who is that dedicated and knows her stuff is worthy of admiration. 2) she regularly did baseball game scene recreations with LEGOs, which were pure genius! Alas, she took her blog down several years ago.

I never really got into "Faith and Fear in Flushing", a NY Mets blog from two guys who wrote The Daily Fix column (later converted into a blog) for the WSJ Online, mostly because I'm not a Mets fan. I always liked the name, though. It sounds like a sly reference to Hunter S. Thompson, and I'd love to know the etymology behind naming a town Flushing.

I also never got into "Deadspin", which might be heresy for sports fans who want a different opinion than what is being offered up by the MSM, which in the case of sports, means ESPN. I did see H.G. "Buzz" Bissinger tear into Will Leitch via YouTube (since I don't get HBO, so could not have seen the Bob Costas Show), and that was revelatory. That diatribe was also the source of my comment tucked away within my profile paragraph on the right side of this blog.

Having said all of that, and because it would smack too much of nepotism or paybacks to name Steve's "beyond assumptions" blog in my top five, here are my top five. Currently. They're always open to change in the next week, month, or year. Keep in mind that several of my top five are written by professionals, which again probably goes against the intent of this Superior Scribbler Award. What do I know? It's not my award idea, so I'll pass it along to whomever I feel is most worthy.

• Joe Posnanski is a professional sports writer currently working for the KC Star and Sports Illustrated. His wonderful blog is writing he does on the side, so he probably doesn't get paid for it any more than the rest of us do. I discovered Joe's writing because The Daily Fix kept linking to his Star columns, which were terrific. When I discovered his blog, I was hook, line, and sinker. Only then did I find out he's originally from Cleveland, OH! So he definitely makes the list. I need to pick up his book about Buck O'Neil, and can't wait for his upcoming book on the Big Red Machine circa 1975.
  
• The Fantasy Football Librarian is a blog I discovered when I googled for "fantasy football draft prep kits" one day. I'm happy I did! Sara mostly posts links to other FFB content like start/sit lists on other sites, but hers is a very good news aggregator for FFB-ophiles. She also is willing to answer crazy e-mails from me, so that's a plus.
• I hate to say it, but there are excellent blogs being written on a regular basis at WSJ Online. Again, I'm giving more kudos to people actually being paid to write their blogs, but gosh darn it, they do it so well! Two I'd like to highlight from the Journal are "The Juggle", which is all about highlighting topics on the struggle to find work-life balance, and "The Daily Fix", which highlights the best sportswriting on the web every week day. Sorry, I just couldn't avoid listing those two in one space. I am sad that so many of the personal finance columnists I enjoyed reading so much on a weekly basis seemed to depart the WSJ shortly after Rupert Murdoch's News Corp took over, but perhaps the timing was just coincidence. The Juggle and The Daily Fix remain solid blogs, but I do miss "Buzzwatch", which kept track of what was hot on the Internet, Internet memes, and related information age currency.
  
• I almost didn't want to include this one, since I am restricted to just five top blogs. Anne doesn't update her "The Agile Mind" blog very often, but when she does, it's great stuff, especially because it is often relevant for my work in the Federal Government technology arena. I could have listed several others in this space that are also relevant to my work, such as GovExec's NextGov "Tech Insider" blog, or "The Danger Room" from WIRED magazine. Wait, have I busted the top five limit? Sue me.
• OK, last one. I just discovered this blog, so perhaps it is too early to be listing Jonathan Turley as a top five favorite. However, I used to check out the WSJ Online's Law Blog for many of the same reasons why I like Turley's blog. He tends to focus on crazy happenstances in legal cases, which sometimes smacks of News of the Weird. All too often, however, the cases Turley highlights are sad examples of authority figures overstepping their bounds in employment or termination decisions. Yes, I did link to that post just so I could link to the photos of the teacher's bikini pics. Seriously! Why do you think I found Turley's blog in the first place?! Sheesh!
• Exception: If you disqualify the Turley blog as too new, then I would throw in a blog written by a woman with whom I went to B-school. Eliza hadn't been writing much in times past, but now she's on the bandwagon along with the rest of us. She doesn't get many comments, so perhaps this little nod will bump up site traffic for her. One can hope!

So there you have it. My top five list actually comes out closer to a top ten. It probably should be a top ten list, because then I could throw in other blogs I've visited in the past but not so much now. That would include "A Million Shades of Gray" (which I like the content, but she hardly ever updates it!), "Life Family et al" (which has been taken down, apparently), "Recovering Straight Girl" (which is kinda fun, but what does it have to do with me?), the "McCain Blogette" (which hasn't been updated since John McCain's concession speech, for obvious reasons), Mike Florio's "ProFootballTalk" Rumor Mill (which really has some of the best NFL scoops on the Internet, veracity be damned), "Because I Said So" (Dawn is the mom of Ebay Pokemon card pack fame, and has been called the "Erma Bombeck of Our Generation" -- how do you fight that? But I've had too much trouble subscribing to her feed via google reader, so I quit trying), and a group blog called "The Sports Economist" (which I still want to get on their author list, but haven't found the time to write anything worthy of their attention).

I'm not even including some of the more spurious pseudo-blogs out there, usually done more for humor's sake, like "The Cold Hard Football Facts", "The Borowitz Report", "The Sports Pickle", and "Drivl.com". Have I provided enough links to keep you busy today? Enjoy!